Society Lawyer

I just saw this film on TCM and it was a pretty good product from MGM's B picture unit. Walter Pidgeon was stepping into Bill Powell's shoes as a slick society lawyer.

Pidgeon is a properly WASP attorney in what would now be called a white shoe law firm. But he has a taste for criminal law that doesn't sit well with the other members of his firm, including his prospective father-in-law. They agree to part professionally and later on Pidgeon's fiancé breaks off the engagement.

That sets off a series of events that has the fiancé's former boy friend on trial for shooting a girl he dumps. At that point Pidgeon's services suddenly become in great demand.

It really looked like this was a series that Walter Pidgeon may have been slated for. Playing his butler was Herbert Mundin who is always very funny. This was the last film that Herbert Mundin ever did, he was killed in automobile crash shortly after this film was made. Some of the incidents in the film with Mundin and Pidgeon are pretty funny as are those with Mundin and Virginia Bruce. He would have been an integral character in a running series. I'll bet that's why a series never developed.

Some of the plot was a bit too coincidental for my taste. Still the players are all good in this. Besides Pidgeon and Mundin, Virginia Bruce is a nightclub chanteuse who's introduced to Pidgeon by former gangster client Leo Carrillo who has a key role in solving the case. Lee Bowman is the framed society boyfriend, Eduardo Ciannelli is another gangster, Ann Morriss is the murder victim and Tom Kennedy and Edward Brophy play a pair of inept bodyguards that Carrillo sends to watch Pidgeon's back.

The film is a remake of MGM's earlier film Penthouse and since this one was now done under the Code, some of the innuendo of the older film has been left out.

For a film entitled Society Lawyer there isn't one courtroom scene. Still this looked like a promising film series, stillborn.

This comedy-drama with screwball roots never gets up to speed with it's improbable murder scenario and lifeless performances from the leads Walter Pidgeon and Virginia Bruce. The film's look has the outstanding MGM gloss and a strong supporting cast (notably Leo Carillo and Eduardo Cianelli) but Pidgeon plays it with a bored arrogance while Bruce, more caught up in herself displays a less than sympathetic self assured narcissism.

High priced lawyer Christopher Durant (Pidgeon) has a penchant for nostalgia de la boule. Defending and springing eccentric mobster Tony Gazoti he gains a key ally when he incurs the wrath of another mobster as he attempts to clear a friend for murder. In order to do so he puts his squeeze Pat (Bruce) in harm's way.

Both Pidgeon and Bruce come across abrasive and lack the energy a more dynamic pairing like Joel McCrea and Carole Lombard might bring to the picture but second tier director Edwin Marin's direction is just that. Dull Society Lawyer deserves its disbarment.

Walter Pigeon and gangsters. OK.

The plot is good. The haunting Virginia Bruce is as good as she always was. Those pale, worried looking eyes were unique! Too bad she didn't have a true A-list career. Lee Bowman is good too, in a small but pivotal role.

The gangsters are not e believable. They are sort of goofy and sometimes comical. OK, this is not a film noir. But murder and corruption aren't cute. They are made to seem so here. It's a chic bonbon made to look like a thriller. Costume changes are the order of the day

When the film begins, Christopher Durant (Walter Pidgeon) has just won a big case. He's a defense lawyer and he got his client acquitted. Now here is where it doesn't make sense. The defendant has a past and is a mobster....but folks around Durant are angry with him that he defended the man. But the man WAS innocent...and Durant was almost instantly attacked by his own law firm (huh??) and his fiancee breaks off their relationship (huh????).

Shortly after, one of Chris' friends is accused of murder. Durant is sure the guy didn't do it and spends the rest of the film investigating the case. The trail leads to a real bad guy (Eduardo Ciannelli) and Durant better be careful, as killing yet another person isn't something that would bother the guy!

The first portion simply made no sense. Defense attorneys defend folks all the time and defending bad people is all part of the job....so the reactions of the people around him simply makes no sense....none. But what follows after is a dandy story and is well worth your time.

"Society Lawyer" is a B movie from MGM, and a remake of the precode "Penthouse" with Myrna Loy and Warner Baxter. This time around it stars Walter Pidgeon and Virginia Bruce. Other roles are played by Lee Bowman, Leo Carrillo, Eduardo Cianelli, and Herbert Mundin.

Pidgeon plays a lawyer Christopher Durant, who works in a prestigious law firm, but he has a penchant for the lower criminal classes and is able to get mobster Tony Gazotti (Carrillo) found not guilty of a charge. Gazotti, who calls Durant "sweetheart" is deeply indebted to him.

Christopher and his fiancé Sue (Frances Mercer) break up; she has fallen for his friend, Phil Siddall (Bowman). The two part amicably.

Siddall winds up arrested for murder of his ex-girlfriend Judy Barton, which is the weakest part of the story. For some reason, she calls him and asks to meet him, just so she can tell him off - and he goes! A shot is fired, which Siddall thinks is a backfire, and then he notices she is bleeding. A gun lands at his feet, and he picks it up.

Sue asks Christopher for his help, and he turns to Gazotti for the lowdown on people who might be involved. He introduces Christopher to a nightclub singer, Pat Abbott (Bruce) who lived in the same building as Judy and knows some of the characters.

Pidgeon does a good, relaxed job, even if he's a little too high class for the perps he likes to defend. Herbert Mundin is very funny as the butler in his last film, as he died in a car accident after the movie completed. Virginia Bruce is lovely with a bright, upbeat presence. Eduardo Ciannelli is his usual gangster self. Ciannelli was an interesting person - he was an international opera star who became an actor and starred in a number of plays before hitting the movies.

Entertaining mostly due to the acting.